Ahmadiyyat - The Renaissance of Islam — Page 351
THE RENAISSANCE OF ISLAM 351 the personality of the Khalifatul Masih, his urbane tempera- ment, his winning smile, the love that shone forth from his eyes and his uniform courtesy extended to everyone without discrimination. In a large majority of cases the visitors decided to join the Movement while they were still at Rab- wah, and the rest followed suit within a few days of their return home. A final decision to keep out of the Movement was extremely rare. The enthusiasm and eagerness of the new entrants into the Movement has been most remarkable; their conformity to the teachings of Islam as interpreted by the Movement has been exemplary. Under this impulse mem- bership of the Movement has risen steadily at a rate much in excess of that which had come to be regarded as normal, and a large number of new branches have been established. The hostility of the bigoted Muslim divines towards the Move- ment has by no means been assuaged, though the eruption of violence against the members of the Movement has subsided in a large measure. Thus the Movement has every reason to be beholden to its extreme opponents for serving as a stimu- lant arousing healthy curiosity about the Movement. Such was the crisis of 1974. These crises have so far recurred with surprising regularity in the history of the Movement at intervals of approximately twenty years: 1914, 1934, 1953-54 and 1974. As has been noticed the Holy Founder of the Ahmadiyya Movement announced almost eight decades ago to an incre- dulous world that according to the Holy QuranJesus had not died on the cross but had been delivered from an accursed death by the grace and mercy of God. Thereafter he had travelled through the countries in which the lost tribes of Israel had been settled after their dispersal, and had finally arrived among a portion of them in Kashmir where he died and is buried. He had also announced that now that the knowledge of these events had been revealed to him, God in